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BRA approves 12-story residential building atop old Greenway parking lot
By adamg on Fri, 10/17/2014 - 11:20am
Architect's rendering.
The BRA board yesterday approved a proposed 44-unit residential building at what has been a parking lot since the 1950s at 55 India St.
Boston Residential Development LLC would build the small tower with no parking spaces, citing its location to public transit and the small size of the lot - although the company says it will try to obtain spaces for tenants in nearby parking garages. Nine of the units would have three bedrooms, the rest one or two.
The developer is also proposing 4,000 square feet of first-floor commercial space.
Construction could begin by March and take 16 months.
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Comments
Wow - 3 bdrms and no on-site deeded parking
something must be changing.
I suppose that anyone who can afford a 3 br unit right on the greenway can afford $400-500 a month for a parking space nearby if they want a car, no?
Why force it?
Is it because they must be able to afford it? The tone comes across as "they must be rich, @#$% them, they should pay..."
Parking is readily available in the area to those willing to pay. Why force something on people who may choose not to "afford" it?
I said nothing about forcing
I said nothing about forcing anyone to do anything. I did use the phrase "if they want a car", which obviously accounts for a situation in which no one in the unit wants a car. As you (and I) pointed out, there is parking in the area that is commercially available should anyone in the dwelling choose to pay for it.
My comment regarding change had to do with the BRA traditionally requiring a certain amount of parking for developments like this, which it clearly did not do here. This is something that has been discussed at length on other treads.
There was no suggestion whatsoever in my comment that "they must be rich, @#$% them, they should pay...", so if you detected that, you might wish to consider examining your own predispositions.
Why assume that 3 bedroom = 1
Why assume that 3 bedroom = 1 owner?
3 bedroom can easily mean 3-4 roommates.
$5,000 rent (example), is "only" $1,700 per person.
I was thinking of owner/occupants
I wouldn't call it an "assumption", but perhaps a "presumption". In my experience, people who pay this kind of money for housing ($5000/mo at today's mortgage rates will get you close to a $1M single family home) don't often seek roommates. I realize that your $5K number was only an example, but, if anything, I think it might be a bit low for that location in a 3BR unit.
Admittedly, I was thinking only of owner/occupants when I wrote my comments, but my guess is that this building in this location will be mostly populated by owner/occupants.
Plenty of (rich) people buy
Plenty of (rich) people buy in for the real estate and then rent out. Rent essentially covers your condo fees, taxes etc, so you youre just sitting on a theoretical investment.
Buy for 1 million, sell for 2 million, have youe 25 year old tenants cover all fees, and youre golden.
Good!
Why should a building be forced to provide more parking than the market requires? If someone wants to rent parking, they can rent parking.
I'm glad this building is where it is, and I'm glad it doesn't have parking, and I'm glad it's increasing the housing supply in the area.
Sure, I'd love to have it be more affordable. Build another half-dozen like it and maybe the supply will increase enough to bring the price down some.
This is EXACTLY the kind of
This is EXACTLY the kind of development the city needs!
Is it just me
Or is the vantage point for that drawing about where one would have been when driving on the old elevated central artery?
Thinking "giant bow" on the building on the far right during the holidays. My niece used to convince my BIL to drive through Boston to get to the south shore from NH just to see that bow.
yup
I'm pretty sure you're right about the bow, Swirly. The vantage point is when you would've been heading south on the expressway...International Place can be seen behind the new building.
That building (1891-92) was
That building (1891-92) was built as the headquarters for the Boston Chamber of Commerce and was later known as the Flour & Grain Exchange Building (think stock exchange for grain companies see pg.64 of the link for the trading floor https://archive.org/details/ceremoniesconnec00bostuoft) when the BCC moved to Post Office Square in the 1920s.
Has a cool three story atrium (now infilled at the 3rd floor) suspended from inside the cone with a circus tent style framing system. Originally had a 4 story internal light well under the giant skylight at the rear too. The largest chandelier (though with the bottom lopped off when the trading floor was infilled) in New England is there.
yay
More overpriced condos for the rich! Go Boston!
/sarcasm
Gentrification Safety Valve
One could argue that putting the expensive properties in the downtown area helps keep these people out of the neighborhoods.
In other words, people with money living where it is convenient won't be throwing that money into extreme luxury renovations elsewhere.
Agreed.
I don't see any problem with building expensive housing in areas that are already expensive.
but why is it expensive
but why is it expensive in the first place? It shouldn't be that way..
It's the urban core of the
It's the urban core of the only major city in New England. I'll argue all day about gentrification and its effects on outer neighborhoods of Boston, but Beacon Hill, Back Bay, the Greenway... it's downtown Boston. It's the neighborhood for folks who can afford to live in downtown Boston, and new construction there is going to be priced accordingly.
Downtown???
You don't think that the central downtown area of one of the major cities in the US is going to be an expensive place to live? The reasons why it is/should be expensive are too many to list...
Downtown, where it is
Downtown, where it is expensive to build, shouldn't have expensive real estate? How?
Why is it expensive????
"but why is it expensive in the first place? It shouldn't be that way.."
Are you for real?
The guy who builds the building paid millions for the lot. Now he has to spend more millions to build the building. He has to get his money back and make some money for himself.
Jesus, is it really that hard to understand?
Location, Location, Location
Work in the Seaport? Statehouse? Financial District? <15 minute walk
Dinner in the North End? South End? Chinatown? Downtown or Fort Point? 15-20 minute walk
Have a dog? Plenty of places to walk on the Greenway.
Work at home, but need to meet clients downtown? That works, too.
Get to the airport? Four different ways to do that (car/cab/limo, Silver Line, Blue Line, water shuttle)
Trains to NYC? Walk to South Station.
Boat to Provincetown? Short walk.
Working in the area, I have found that it is rather convenient to get to pretty much everything except a grocery store - and Roche Bros will open soon. I can easily see why people with money would want to live in that location - extremely convenient.
Boat = Missed
You all have clearly missed my point. Not even going to waste the bytes explaining myself.
Uh, six people just cogently
Uh, six people just cogently refuted your original point (which was one sentence long). Your argument is "housing in downtown Boston shouldn't be expensive." Are we not living in a market economy? Is this Soviet Russia?
In America, location determines cost of housing. In Soviet Russia, housing determines location of you!
Bad choice
If nobody gets your point, you have to ask whether there is one. Avoid explaining if you must, but understand, then, that all of us thinking that demand exceeds supply is enough explanation are going to ignore whatever point you were trying to make.
It's the internet
Try not to take it so seriously. I don't :)
Why waste the energy.. Sorry, slowly but surely I'm no longer going to sit and argue with people on the internet. It proves nothing, gets you nowhere, and just makes my blood pressure rise for zero reason.
But thanks to everyone for your input, it as much to me as the temperature on Saturn currently.
It might actually cool you off a bit
But I googled it for you:
With an average temperature of minus 288 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 178 degrees Celsius), Saturn is a pretty cool planet. Although there are some small differences as one travels from the equator to the poles, much of Saturn's temperature variation is horizontal.
Have a nice weekend Cybah :-)
Stevil
You too :)
I'd like to order an iced coffee
Why did you give me an iced coffee? I clearly meant the hamburger with fries.
You people clearly missed the boat
Finally!
Ill be a little sad to see the zipcars relocated, but I am thrilled the NIMBYs in my building did not win their battle with this one. Not my fault they bought the units facing one of the only open lots along the Greenway - did they think it would be a parking lot forever?
An honest render
Where is the grayish, purple sky just after a rainstorm view and the throngs of diverse, well-dressed, happy people gallivanting around?
Again, how much nicer would the Greenway be if the park was shifted to the right (west) so that it abuts these developments and Atlantic s-bound traffic shifted to the other side. Digression aside, if I had the money I'd live there because of the view of the Grain Exchange building.
six of one, half dozen of the other
either you have a park between the two seperate sets of travel lanes, or you have a park next to a 4 lane major artery, it wouldn't really make a difference at all
Problem is that its 6 lanes..
Problem is that its 6 lanes...
Again, what difference does
Again, what difference does that make? Just something to bitch about? You could have six lanes together with a park bordering it, or six lanes with a park in the middle. Either way it is going to do nothing to change the sight, smell, or noise of the road and traffic from Atlantic. You'd still have to cross six lanes to get across Atlantic (the median park actually makes crossing easier), and you'd still have roads cutting through perpendicular to Atlantic.
Well it's not changing now
But I'd argue a park hemmed in by three roads is better than one hemmed in by four, arterial or not considering the multitude of parks in and around Boston that abut arterial roads. But it isn't changing so I'll find something else to harp on I guess.
Structural reasons for the split
It has to do with what is underneath (on and off ramps), how it was built, and the need for those roadways to service both existing buildings and services which predated the teardown.
Would you want the driveway for the fire department or several underground parking lots cutting across the park?
Also, the surface roads had to be in place and operating when the tunnel opened, which was before the whole mess in the middle came down. The elevated Central Artery was in use pretty much up to the day that the tunnel opened. The park was built after.
East Boston will see more
East Boston will see more development, proposal to build 126,189 gross square feet including 94 residential units , 7,790 gsf Commercial space, and 126 associated parking spaces with 2 garage levels with bike rack spaces. As well as landscaped area.
The proposed project is located on a 35,998 parcel of land at 135 Bremen Street, directly around the corner from Santarpios pizza.
I'm all for new buildings,
I'm all for new buildings, but my gripe is with the state of modern architecture.
If I were the person who designed this, I would stop and think - "Man,my stuff looks really weak compared to that old Grain Exchange building". Don't people take pride in their work anymore?
Its usually not up to the
Its usually not up to the designer, the accountant ends up deciding how nice a building looks.
"Youre using real stone? No. Youre now using precast concrete"
To be fair to precast though
To be fair to precast though you can do some pretty nice things with it. Although real stone almost always ends up looking better
Stone will be used
Most likely on kitchen counter tops, bathroom vanities & walls. Bathroom and foyer floors.
Price per square foot reaches a max
There is a max price per square foot that people are willing to pay, regardless of the neighborhood. You could spend billions building but people will not pay over the comps.
I wish we could go back to a time where we built beautiful buildings too. But its just too expensive to build. Back 100 or 150 years ago labor was dirt cheap. But now you have to pay prevailing wage in the city and a laborer is likely to be paid $30 an hour. Its no longer cost effective.
That all makes sense, but it
That all makes sense, but it seems like there'a much higher margin on this luxury building, yet it looks the same as any other development in cheaper areas.
Also it's not like they have to build a plaza hotel. Just a classically proportioned brick facade with basic cornice can go a long way. Greek revival houses in Beacon Hill are relatively plain, but they look great because of wholesome materials, pleasant proportions and just enough ornamentation.
Yeah, labor was cheap, but also there were no power tools, no trucks, no computers, etc. So we are maybe paying a worker $30/hour, but he might be doing a job of 3 workers in 19th century.
Even when they try to do something like this, they usually fail. Few years ago a whole block of brick buildings collapsed on chelsea street in East Boston. They just finished rebuilding them, but the new stuff is so inferior to the older ones its sad - odd proportions, no cornice, the entryways lack any cohesion or style and are awkwardly placed. Not to mention that the new buildings are wood framed with only a brick facade. Even poorest 3rd world countries use concrete and brick when they can. But US is just building glorified trailer parks.
As somebody else mentioned - Accountants
These projects cost so much money that there is usually multiple partners and everyone wants to squeeze as much money out of the project as possible.
3rd world can still do brick and stone for the same reason we are able to do it a hundred years ago. Again, cheap labor that nobody gives a crap about if they get hurt or injured.
US is not the only one doing this style of building. Europe is pretty much on the same page as the US. Almost identical style and even identical builder (global corporations). Unless the project is a municipal type deal where money is not dictated by maximizing profit.
Good points...
but I'd argue that many European cities take design into greater account than the US. In turn, the 'profit motive' of European buildings is understated and/or underemphasized (though certainly relevant) - due to varying residency and tax regimes. I split my time between Cambridge and Copenhagen and I'd argue that the real estate market in Boston is far more affluent and viable than Denmark, but the new (within the last 20 years) buildings in Copenhagen are VASTLY better designed than those in Boston.
I used to work right next to
I used to work right next to that building and parking down there is a nightmare. Parking anywhere including at any of the garages after a certain time was extremely difficult due to the New England Aquarium being right there.
Before and After
Here is a link to a picture of the artery being built through what was there before.
http://www.bostonglobe.com/2013/06/26/the-elevated-central-artery/EaJXoN...